The urgent need for introducing a touch-safe or electrically shockproof lamp holder to replace the existing screw-type or bayonet fittings which are currently in use has existed for decades. These lamp holders are an extreme shock hazard when contacted, and there have been countless accidents in the course of time, some of them with deadly consequences.
A design for a new lamp holder has already been on the list of requirements of the VDE and many other testing authorities for many years, particularly because of the likely problems during the transition period to a new system.
Consequently, a new lamp holder system must not only be shockproof, but it also must necessarily be capable of being fitted into the existing conventional lamp holders by means of an adapter. It cannot be expected that the billions of existing lamp fittings can be exchanged all at once.
New, touch-safe lamp holders can only be provided for new lamps. If the quick transition to a shockproof system, which has been desirable for many years, is to be achieved, then this is only feasible, if, from a certain date, the production of lamps is converted to exclusive manufacture of touch-safe lamp holders and sockets, with simultaneous creation of the adapters required for existing lamp sockets.